Conservative Pulse

This is almost a complete guess on my part, but I’ll go ahead and make some predictions for tonight’s results.  Let’s see how very wrong I am once things are counted up… 

REPUBLICANS
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Huckabee - 32%
Romney -28%
Thompson - 14%
McCain - 10%
Paul - 8%
Giuliani - 5%
Keyes - 2%
Hunter - 1%

Some Notes:  Thompson and McCain have been picking up steam in the last month.  McCain’s boost came because of the recent newspaper endorsements.  He’s spent little time and almost no money in Iowa.  Meanwhile, Fred Thompson’s fortunes have improved because he’s staked his whole campaign and organization on an all-out bus tour of the state. So either of them might do a bit better.  If McCain breaks past 20% — the whole race is over with.  If Thompson is worse than fourth place… he’s out of the race before New Hampshire.  Actually, anything less than third might still put him out of the race. 

And then there’s Ron Paul.  Some are predicting he’ll surge into third place because his supporters are so incredibly die hard. 

It wouldn’t shock me if my predicted results for McCain and Paul flipped.  Even though McCain’s support has ticked up a little bit… he has zero organization in the state and wasn’t active much until he got the Register’s endorsement.

The polls might be over-stating or under-stating Paul’s real support.  Remember that these caucuses require people to head out in the cold and sit around in a church basement with their grandparents for the entire evening.  And then, in many cases, to publicly walk to a different side of the room than their grandparents and declare their support for a very different kind of Republican candidate in front of their whole town.

Paul has some of the most dedicated supporters, no doubt.  But he also has many of the youngest ones… and those are very unpredictable.  I personally know both types of Ron Paul supporter.  Ones who would follow the Ron Paul blimp around up and down the East Coast.  And ones who hate politics and just sort of hope that he wins.  But that second group doesn’t care enough to go something complicated and unpleasant for him… like attend a Republican caucus.

I could see Ron Paul finishing anywhere from 5% to 20%.  Lower if the college students stay in and drink beer to stay warm.  Or higher if everyone comes out in full force during a low turn-out election and they really swamp the polls.

And even though I really don’t care too much, I’ll make some predictions on the Democratic side as well…

DEMOCRATS
——————
Edwards - 27%
Obama - 26%
Clinton - 23%
Biden - 11%
Richardson - 7%
Dodd - 4%
Kucinich - 2%
Gravel - less than 1%  

I know that I’m going way out on a limb as most polls predict that Obama will take it.  But if Edwards does win, this will turn the race upside down and obviously be much more fun to watch.  And I’d really just like to see Hillary in third place.